Patrick R

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Everything posted by Patrick R

  1. The Dancing Thumb (aka: music recommendations)

    I recently picked up the compilation Saigon Rock & Soul, which collects Vietnamese rock music from 1968 - 1974, and CBC Band has been destroying me. That drum sound and that guitar sound and those distant vocals and *explode*.
  2. I forgot about the occasional foot shots (which I would still not qualify as mainstream sexuality), but they hardly inform her character. My point is there's a ton of places where showing off The Bride's body could have been narratively justified (notice how he shoots and edits around the attempted rape she wakes up to, or how the camera glides away when she's changing in the bathroom stall) but he forgoes that because it would muddle the meaning of the film. Tomb Raider, on the other hand, has a ton of cleavage and ass-shots because Hey, what's the point in having a beautiful woman be our star if there isn't a little fan-service.
  3. Kill Bill is very much about The Bride being a woman. Her womanhood is core to her quest and motivation. In that way, it's the exact opposite of what you're saying, because she isn't just a male action hero swapped out with a woman. QT was thoughtful about how making a film about a female changes things, and adjusted accordingly, starting with not sexualizing her. Nothing about her depiction is designed for titillation. You can't say the same about Tomb Raider.
  4. Movie/TV recommendations

    How can there be arguing when The Red Balloon, one of the greatest short films of all time, is on Netflix Instant? Thatgamecompany wishes it could capture the pathos and whimsy of The Red Balloon. First-rate puppeteering too. You will believe that a featureless red balloon can weep. That's The Red Balloon, available now on Netflix Instant, and probably Pirate Bay too if that's more your speed. </rerail>
  5. Movie/TV recommendations

    Yes. I imagine a poster like that is more to eliminate headaches for the staff than to assuage morons.
  6. Tomb Raider

    Just in general, the way a television segment like that works is that Conan doesn't go in blind. It seems likely that his constant pervyness was at least partially joke at the developer's expense (though the actual execution of it left a lot to be desired) because he'd be prepped beforehand on what the core tenants of the Tomb Raider franchise (Lara's beauty being one of the chief selling points). The problem is that Conan is, to an extent, a character. The actual Conan O'Brien is a well-educated and intelligent man, but his character has to tone that down, and as a result we get the easier "pervy" jokes, instead of out-and-out condemnation. But, to be perfectly honest, this is most likely branded content. Which means that Square-Enix pays the show to review their game (because even if Conan mocks the games to an extent, getting an easily impressed and very popular talk show host to play your game on his show for 7 minutes is damned good advertising), so it's possible that any number of his talking points were actually coached by Square-Enix. That would certainly explain why the conclusion Conan comes to ("This game makes you fall in love with Lara and then it takes her away from you.") is shockingly similar to what Ron Rosenberg was pitching. Still a really funny video, especially with the impalement stuff at the end.
  7. Movie/TV recommendations

    If you have a strong stomach for offensive humor and gross-out gags (AKA, Troma films), Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead is kind of a masterpiece. Funnier, better paced, more satirically pointed and with better gore effects than any other Troma movie I've ever seen. Think of it as Dead Alive, but mixed with a Truly Tasteless Jokes joke-book.
  8. Movie/TV recommendations

    We had to put similar warnings up in Blockbuster telling customers that Pan's Labyrinth was in Spanish. A lot of people are violently opposed to thinking while watching movies, even to the extent of reading subtitles. And The Master was too oblique to ever gain awards show steam. Similar to Tree of Life, actually.
  9. Movie/TV recommendations

    This is entirely why I use it. Sorting movies by genre and decade is also a good way to light a fire under your ass, like when I realized I only had seen a dozen horror movies from the 50's and 60's, but a lot more in every other decade. Film is my primary outlet for my nerd energy (video games would be third, behind rap music), so it's nice to clearly see where the holes in my experience are. And I definitely agree with you there, Luftmensch. Rating art in general isn't a terribly precise exercise, so putting things in general categories of "good, great, masterpiece" etc. is more intuitive.
  10. Movie/TV recommendations

    I don't sweat it too much, just go on instinct. On my viewing journal I use letter grades that stand in for very general things.
  11. Movie/TV recommendations

    I also use Criticker. I just think of the movie as a school assignment, and you're giving it a grade. In that way, 1 - 100 makes much more sense to me than stars, which I could never make sense of.
  12. Movie/TV recommendations

    Again, a protagonist can be static. They're talking about selling screenplays, not literary criticism. "The protagonist is the character that suffers the most" is fine advice for someone who's trying to write, but it's hardly defendable as theory. At any rate, whether or not he's the protagonist, the film clearly celebrates him. It basically throws a parade in his honor. The film never asks you to identify with Rooney at all.
  13. Movie/TV recommendations

    I think Ferris Bueller is undoubtedly the protagonist. Just because he doesn't have an arc doesn't mean he isn't the protagonist.
  14. Movie/TV recommendations

    Super smart critic Damon Houx agrees with you. (Though, further down in the article, super smart critic Jeremy "Beaks" Smith disagrees.)
  15. (IGN.com)

    I'm a little bummed about UGO, but only because I had good friends who wrote for it.
  16. Netflix

    Netflix definitely doesn't care, as it adds value to their site at no cost to them. The companies who own the films that Netflix didn't pay for rights to in other countries would probably mind.
  17. Movie/TV recommendations

    If you haven't seen John Cassavetes' Killing of a Chinese Bookie, you need to do so pronto. It's pretty much the greatest film ever made. It's heartbreaking and funny and tense and crazy and beautiful and moving and every other word that Peter Travers ever used. Hell yeah, it's a triumph and a tour de force. It's also kind of similar in structure (though completely different in tone) to How to Succeed in Business which you also need to see, in case the Thumbs constantly name-dropping it hasn't already motivated you to do so.
  18. Surgeon Simulator 2013

    The very fact that a perfect run doesn't look that different from a horrible run kind of eliminates that obsessive "Wait I think I ALMOST HAVE IT" quality that QWOP had. But that first moment the lunacy of the control scheme dawned me (having gone into the game completely blind) is probably the hardest I've ever laughed playing a game.
  19. Other podcasts

    If you are at all interested in sketch comedy or comedy writing, Before You Were Funny (http://beforeyouwerefunny.com/) is well worth your time. In it sketch comedians bring in sketches that never got performed and do cold readings. The result is a fascinating look into all the chafe, the sketches too half-baked, too weird, too baffling to ever get performed for audiences. I'd especially recommend episodes 5, 6, 8, and 10.
  20. Aliens: Colonial Marines

    But the way that Jazz Hands moment is edited (I assumed you're talking about Dallas' death), it gets me every time.
  21. Aliens: Colonial Marines

    Aliens mostly suffers from irritating & generic characters and the fact that the aliens all look like stuntmen in football gear. The movement of the creature in Alien lends it so much of it's power, but the necessities of shooting for action, rather than suspense, mean that Cameron wasn't really able to utilize that Val Lewton-style power of suggestion. That said, Cameron is REALLY GOOD at shooting action sequences, and that facehugger attack scene is amazing.
  22. Celebrating 100 Episodes (Maybe)

    A JP commentary track would actually be amazing.
  23. Netflix

    They probably will at some point, unless it's a huge disaster. But this is their big push towards their new television dynamic, so they won't announce it for a while yet.